Archive for the ‘Events’ Category

This year again, we have been to Gamescom. This time was quite different thanks to the fact that we were part of the awesome Indie Booth Arena, which is the best place to meet other indies and play wonderful uncommon games.

It was also the first time that Epistorywas showcasted during a public event since its release in March 2016. And guess what? People liked it! Some players, even told us that Epistory was the best game presented at Gamescom this year. What a compliment!

Like every year, we met some wonderful people: some new and some who knew us from last Gamescom. Hope, we’ll meet again next year.

Hi folks! We are so glad to announce the release of Epistory on Early Access. See you the 30thofSeptember on Steam. Meanwhile, you can visit the Steam page of Epistory and put it in your wish list: http://store.steampowered.com/app/398850

This week we continued working on the game, mostly on technical fixes. Some in-game animations, triggered when Norn do specific actions (watering a plant, playing with a toy…) were broken and the issue was more important than we thought (we had to fix the system handling animations, and not animations themselves).

Most importantly, the date for the Twitch session is finally set! Sorry about the delay… It will take place December, Thursday 11th at 8PM CET. For information, Central European Time corresponds to GMT+1:00.

From the 8th to the 14th of December it is the Computer Science Education Week that will take place all around the world. The event will specially focus on the Hour of Code. The Hour of Code is a global movement reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries. Anyone, anywhere can organize an Hour of Code event.

The past weeks were focused on fixing bugs such as the following ones:- Some speech bubbles are invisible- Incorrect orientation for some cinematics- Thought bubbles are displayed near Norn’s portrait- Norns staying idle on ladders- Some objects become gigantic after repair- Norns are incorrectly placed when sleeping in nests- Player’s order to the Norn is not displayed- Nests do not rotate correctly- Tatous are walking weirdly (they seem to do the moonwalk)- No cursor displayed on the main menu- Bridge on the plaja level is not correctly placed- When selling an item, the selling feedback is not displayed- …

We also updated some icons and descriptions for the item kit products. Science kit descriptions have now colored chemical names allowing a better basic understanding. We also changed the order informations were displayed on the level up screen, as it was somewhat counter-intuitive.

Concerning the Twitch session… We still have no information regarding the exact date. Of course, we’ll keep you updated!

No need to tell you that we have been quite busy these days. Most of our teams are working on several projects at the same time excepting Creatures’ team who is focusing on finishing Creatures Online. That game really cost us an arm.

Talking about Creatures Online, we have been releasing a “weekly update” on the forum every week for 4 months now . The point of those updates is to show to the community where the development exactly stands. We should have done that from the beginning but the community management was not that effective back in those days. It was the first time we had to manage such a big license with such an active community. We did our best and I really hope that the community noticed it. As you certainly know, Fishing Cactus doesn’t take care of the CO page on Facebook nor the Twitter account anymore.

Andrea and I talked to Raphaël “Ulandar” from ProsiebenSat.1 Games, who is in charge of the whole community management of Creatures Online. A bunch of good ideas came from that conversation such as making videos to show game improvements, talking about CAOS, etc.

The sooner Creatures will be finished the sooner the team will be available to work on other games in production such as Algo-Bot which should hit Kickstarter in January. Yeah I know what you think! It’s a fact that we have deadline issues I have to admit that I’ve never thought that launching a Kickstarter campaign could be that difficult. Meanwhile, you will find our Kickstarter video here and signup if you want to be informed the day Algo-Bot hits Kickstarter. Hope that this game will be funded because it really deserves to be finished. It’s not my only opinion, the awards below talk by themselves: Top 5 of the best Indie Game at Indie Prize Showcase and Best Serious Game in category HR – Training at Serious Game Expo. So, proud of our little fellow <3

To finish my post I would like to wish you a lot of Roasted Turkey, Mashed Potatoes and Pumpkin Pie! Happy Thanksgiving!

The Indie Prize Showcase will take place at Casual Connect Kyiv on October 23-25, 2013 with something like 850 industry professionals attending the event. Over 25 indie game development teams will be showcasing their games and two of them will win prizes awards from the showcase sponsors and Indie Prize committee.

I have the Conference content just in front of me and judging by what I read it’s gonna be very interesting and… Oh waww Fishing Cactus is a speaker! “Algo-Bot: How Coding Can Be Fun” … wait! What?! Coding can be fun. Can coding really be fun? Of course it can and we will show you how we managed to do that So, be sure to be at Casual Connect the 25 October at 10:30 to hear our Guillaume telling you how difficult it is to make a learning game without being boring.

The gamescom in Köln, that is the biggest videogame event in Europe, has now started. For the occasion, four brave cactuses from the Creatures Online team have landed Tuesday in Germany with the very last demo of the game in their hands.

It only took a few hours before the Creatures Online booth was surrounded by a crowd of people who wanted to test our beloved game and have their picture with some crazy Norns – BTW have a look at mine with Icke from ProsiebenSat.1 Games.

About the demo, I hope that the Creatures community will enjoy the new baby Norn’s head that is smaller than in previous versions of the game. Also, may I introduce you the Kabuto Norn – my favorite by far

The team will go back to Belgium on Sunday, so, if you attend gamescom don’t forget to come at the Creatures Online Booth H7.1 to say “Hi”. I am sure they will have nice giveaways!

As every year, Fishing Cactus will join the party and celebrate the games! Our team will land the 21st of August and go back to Belgium the 24th with schnitzel-full bellies.

Creatures Online demo

Yeah that’s right, Creatures Online’s gonna be at Gamescom! Join us playing Creatures Online and be one of the lucky ones to have an exclusive sneak preview of the game. You’re talkative? Then we’ll be happy to welcome you at Bigben Interactive’s Creatures Online booth to chat with the Cactus guys and ProSiebenSat.1 Games.